tell me on a sunday

am here every month on sat or sunday. i fulfil part of my childhood and undergrad dream- to study more about and handle live animals in a life-giving way... practise a little bit of zoology which i failed to take during my uni days.

that's a malayan stick insect. similar to the ones found in undisturbed forests over here. i get alot of fun getting visitors to spot them on the branch display. my guests register a childlike delight when they are able to identify these masters of disguise brought out for interaction and display.

that's my favourite queensland titan, found only in australia. harmless and defenceless, it rears its abdomen like a scorpion if disturbed. visitors hazard a good guess all the time. and the brave ones move on to put them on their shirts, caps or face. some adults squeal away but their children become their teachers on that appointed hour or so, they claim.

i spend these sundays unpacking the lore that hides in forest songs. we master terms like dimorphism, mimicry, parthenogenesis. live and play witness to the kid, tickling in us all.

red, lunar & ox

i grew up with emblems related to most things chinese. every lunar new year brings its cache of auspicious sayings, with its vast semantic fields that draw material associations like wealth, prosperity, luck, credit, cash and all things gold and red to our elusive search for happiness. the chinese appear to speak an embroidered language that is deeply couched with meaning. phonetically, this allows speakers to acknowledge hierarchies of rank and file, intent and idea into lettered phrases that may be spoken elegantly in a line or two.

i used to resist the link; that one can be happy simply by receiving an endless accumulation of wealth. i was at one stage, critical of what i perceive to be the 'materialistic' foundations / 'philosophical assumptions' of the chinese way of defining 'goodwill' or 'lunar new year culture.' today, inverted commas mark the terms that sweep this entry. i am careful to bracket them as a way of confronting the relativity of such values inherited over the years. still, money isn't everything. i rather wish for good health, first- for myself, loved ones and friends so that we may continue to reflect and share generosity & goodness with those that come our way. of course, there will be moments when we would rather invest some of that on our personal search for happiness, be it temporal or eternal.

it brought to mind a text i read in uni; keith basso's Wisdom Sits In Places. an anthropologist who specialises in culture and linguistics, basso looked deep into the oral traditions. he identified deep structures in the language spoken by western apache indians and grew to understand their basis for naming places and using soundscapes or personal narratives to infuse spiritual or aspirational content on their own material spheres.

i guess material preoccupations have their place in most cultures. my race's depicted obsession with wealth (painted in homes, on streets and sewn on attire)is perhaps a fuzzy reflection of our own kindled pursuit of contentment and security. we word and speak our best intents, then press into colour the deep tidings we fail to grasp with our hands...

separate species

common fruit bat / Cynopterus brachyotis
like colugos, bats are also mammals. however, they are fully capable of flight. other characteristics include

-Fox-like face, protruding jaw
-Short to non-existent tail
-Normal to large, dark eyes
-Ears are fully enclosed at the base
-Hair varies in thickness; generally short and fuzzy; front part of head, outer parts of limbs and wing membrane are generally bald.
-Skin is brownish with variation in hue and intensity
-Wings are usually dark with spotted patterns
-Teeth are generally 34 in number and do not fully close; the back molars are flat and wide and used for crushing soft fruits
-Long and agile tongue
-Hands have a small claw on the second fingers which are useful in ripping open fruits; this is a distinguishing factor between Fruit and Insectivorous Bats

adapted from: http://whozoo.org/students/dansch/fruitbat.htm


colugo / Malayan flying lemur- Cynocephalus variegatus
The term is a misnomer as colugos are not lemurs. neither do they fly. rather, they glide using their skin membranes. they have more fur than bats. they make use of their underside membranes to catch wind currents as they travel from tree to tree. this calls for incredible tact, a superior sense of approximation, judgement and availablility of wind currents to take them across distances. the one i saw happened to glide across a packed expressway- to the other far side of the road!